- maenglish@lists.qc.cuny.edu - QC Mailman 3 Archives

[EnglishMA] Spring 2022 end-of-semester announcements
by Caroline K. Hong 16 May '22

16 May '22

Dear Graduate Students, Tomorrow, Tuesday, May 17, is the last day of classes for the Spring 2022 semester. You're almost at the finish line! Please read on for some important end-of-the-semester announcements and updates. As always, if you have any questions or need advising, please email both of us anytime. COURSE WITHDRAWALS (BY TOMORROW) If you fell behind in any of your classes and aren't able to pass them, your best option is to drop those courses with a W grade via your CUNYfirst Student Center. The withdrawal deadline for Spring 2022 is *TOMORROW, May 17*. FYI, W grades do not impact your GPA. (However, if you have any questions about how Ws might impact financial aid, you can email the QC Hub <https://www.qc.cuny.edu/qchub/> at QCHub(a)qc.cuny.edu.) TAKING AN INC If you are unable to complete a final course assignment and would like to take an incomplete (INC), please discuss this possibility and make specific arrangements with your professor. Keep in mind that an INC is a temporary grade and should be resolved ASAP. All INCs must be completed within 1 calendar year (so an INC in Spring 2022 must be resolved before the end of Spring 2023). Please note that QC is now enforcing the policy for grad students that *any INCs not resolved within 1 year will be converted to failing grades (FIN)*. REGISTERING FOR FALL (& SUMMER) 2022 COURSES If you're planning to take Fall 2022 and/or Summer 2022 courses and haven't yet registered, please do so ASAP via CUNYfirst. (Courses that are under-enrolled may be canceled by the College administration.) I've attached the updated fall and summer course descriptions here. For the fall, please note that (1) there is a new course description for Prof. Sawyer Kemp's ENGL 742 and (2) there has been a change in instruction mode for Prof. Karen Weingarten's ENGL 728, which will now be a *hybrid* course (meaning it will occasionally meet online instead of only in person). There may be a few more fall courses that shift to hybrid, just to offer the most flexibility for students. We'll announce those changes if/when they happen. REGISTERING FOR ENGL 791 & ENGL 795 A reminder that, for anyone planning to take ENGL 791 (thesis essay) or ENGL 795 (independent study) in Fall 2022, the sign-up forms and proposals are due by email to MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu by *August 5, 2022*, at the latest. Please email us for more info or to get a copy of either sign-up form. (Students planning to take ENGL 791 in the fall should've already been in touch—please email ASAP if you haven't already. If you already emailed, we'll follow up with you soon.) OUR TEMPORARY WEBSITE Some of you may have noticed that the QC website has been under construction (and is a hot mess). For now, if you need info re: our program or department, please consult our temporary department website here <https://qcenglish.commons.gc.cuny.edu/graduate/ma-in-english/>. QC COUNSELING SERVICES It's totally normal to be struggling at the end of the semester, even in the best of times. Please keep in mind that Counseling Services <https://www.qc.cuny.edu/cs/> offers free and confidential mental health support for all QC students. You can email them at CounselingServices(a)qc.cuny.edu to make a virtual appointment. If you're in crisis, you can reach the Crisis Text Line <https://www.crisistextline.org/> by texting CUNY to 741741. 2022 BEST GRAD CONFERENCE PRESENTATION PRIZE Many thanks to all of you who participated in our hybrid grad conference <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/> a couple weeks ago and helped to make it a great success! We are thrilled to announce that the 2022 English Graduate Conference Best Presentation Prize goes to Victoria Morris, a QC MAT student, for her presentation, “Reading *Klara and the Sun* through the Lens of Structural Violence in Our Society.” Congrats to Victoria and all our fantastic presenters! GRADUATION Finally, heartfelt congratulations to all of you who are finishing up the program and earning your MA degree this semester! You should be incredibly proud of yourselves for all you've accomplished, especially in such challenging times! The campus-wide Commencement Ceremony <https://www.qc.cuny.edu/ce/> and our English Department Graduation Ceremony <https://qcenglish.commons.gc.cuny.edu/events/graduation-ceremony-2022/> are taking place on campus on *Thursday, June 2*. Please click these links for more info on how to register to participate (with a maximum of 2 guests per graduate). We'll be in touch with more updates throughout the summer. In the meantime, best of luck with your final papers and projects! And wishing you a safe, restorative, and joyful summer! Best, Caroline & Hillary, your Directors of Graduate Studies in English -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days.

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[EnglishMA] English Graduation Ceremony on June 2
by Caroline K. Hong 06 May '22

06 May '22

Dear Graduate Students, For those of you who are planning to graduate this semester (or this summer), you are invited to participate in this year's English Department Graduation Ceremony <https://qcenglish.commons.gc.cuny.edu/events/graduation-ceremony-2022/>! Our ceremony will be back in person on *Thursday, June 2*, starting *around 12:15pm* (right after the College-wide ceremony), in the Goldstein Theater on campus. You can find out more info and instructions at https://qcenglish.commons.gc.cuny.edu/events/graduation-ceremony-2022/. Please note that *you MUST register in advance* to get to campus access for guests, using the form at https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=s_BgbwZfCU6XFZiduozH2DY…. Each student is limited to *2 guests max*. Masks are strongly encouraged, and all attendees must comply with CUNY vaccine mandate requirements <https://www.cuny.edu/coronavirus/faqs/> and show proof of vaccination to access campus. Graduates should come up to sit on the stage, and you'll be given instructions there. The ceremony typically lasts about an hour, and there will be student and faculty speakers. And this is where your names will be read and you'll walk across the stage to receive a certificate (diplomas arrive in the mail much later). (If you graduated this past Fall 2021 semester and would also like to participate in the ceremony, please let me know and I'll try to request this on your behalf.) Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. And hope to see many of you today on Zoom <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/zoom-info/> for the second day of our grad conference <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/>! Best, Caroline -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days.

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[EnglishMA] Congrats to Arianna Frisina, winner of the 2022 Comley Prize!
by Caroline K. Hong 04 May '22

04 May '22

Our heartfelt congratulations to *Arianna Frisina*, the winner of this year's Nancy Comley Prize, for her outstanding essay “Oliphant’s *The Library Window* as an Exploration of Victorian Theories of Consciousness, Imagination, and Phantasmagoria“! Thank you to everyone who submitted their work—the judges loved reading all the essays and had a very difficult time choosing a winner. We faculty are always blown away by the excellent work of our graduate students, and you all should be incredibly proud of yourselves! We will be celebrating Arianna and all our QC English students’ accomplishments at this year's Writing Prizes Ceremony, which will take place in person on *Monday, May 16, from 12:00–2:00pm*, in the Godwin-Ternbach Museum in Klapper Hall. Everyone is welcome to join! Congrats again, Arianna! Best, Caroline & Hillary, your Directors of Graduate Studies in English -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days.

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[EnglishMA] Reminder: Our English Grad Conference this week!
by Caroline K. Hong 03 May '22

03 May '22

Dear Graduate Students, A reminder that our 8th annual English Grad Conference on "Catastrophe and Community" <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/> is happening this week! We will be *in person in Klapper 708/710 this Thursday, May 5, from 4–7pm* (a mask-friendly event!) and on *Zoom this Friday, May 6, from 10:30am–5:30pm*. Click through to find the full conference schedule of student panels and faculty roundtables <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/schedule/>, Friday's Zoom info <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/zoom-info/>, etc. And the asynchronous presentations <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/asynch/> are now up for you to check out as well! Please join us for as much of the conference as you can, and we hope to see you all soon, in person and online! [image: MA Conference 2022 Flyer Final.png] Best, Caroline & Hillary, Directors of Graduate Studies in English (MA) -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days.

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[EnglishMA] MFA event tonight + our annual Grad Conference next week!
by Caroline K. Hong 27 Apr '22

27 Apr '22

Dear Graduate Students, Today, *Wednesday, April 27, at 7:00pm*, our MFA program is sponsoring a virtual poetry reading with the fabulous poets Monica Sok <http://www.monicasok.com/> and Tina Chang <https://www.tinachang.com/>. Please see the attached flyer, and you can register for the Zoom here <https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIufuGgrD0qGtO6EvQK-DNdj3UFONfrFE…> . And we are super excited to share more details about our 8th annual QC English Graduate Conference, on the theme of "Catastrophe and Community," coming up next week—*in person in Klapper 708/710 on Thursday, May 5, from 4–7pm*, and via *Zoom on Friday, May 6, from 10:30am–5:30pm*. You can now peruse the conference website <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/> for the full schedule <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/schedule/>, Zoom info <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/zoom-info/>, etc. Asynchronous presentations <https://catastrophe.commons.gc.cuny.edu/asynch/> will launch on the website by May 3. Please help us spread the word, and we hope you'll join us for as much of the conference as possible, to learn from and support your peers and to participate in one of the highlights of our program! [image: MA Conference 2022 Flyer Final.png] Best, Caroline & Hillary, your Directors of Graduate Studies in English -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days.

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[EnglishMA] Nancy Comley Prize + prereg save-the-date
by Caroline K. Hong 25 Apr '22

25 Apr '22

Dear Graduate Students, Please find attached (and pasted below) the submission guidelines for our annual *Nancy Comley Prize*, awarded to the best essay written by an English MA, MS Ed, or MAT student. The prize winner gets a little bit of $$$ and of course more importantly the honor of having their brilliance recognized by our English department community! We hope you'll consider submitting something, whether it's an essay you've already written for a class, a work-in-progress, or your thesis essay. Submissions are due *Monday, April 25*, right after spring break. Also please save the date—*preregistration* for English grad courses will be happening via email the week of *April 4*. We'll be sending out instructions and the Fall 2022 course descriptions next week, so please look out for that. Best, Caroline and Hillary, your Directors of Graduate Studies in English -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days. -- *2022 NANCY COMLEY PRIZE* for the best essay by a QC English MA, MS Ed, or MAT student Named for the long-standing Chair of the English Department, the Nancy Comley Prize was established in 2012 to honor the best essay written by a graduate student matriculated in the Queens College English MA, MS Ed, or MAT programs. The prize is sponsored by the English Department Alumni Fund. All currently matriculated English MA, MS Ed, and MAT students, as well as master’s students who graduated in Fall 2021, are eligible. Submissions should be 10–25 pages in length, typed, double-spaced, in standard 12-point font, with 1-inch margins and page numbers. They must be carefully proofread and formatted according to current MLA style <https://style.mla.org/mla-format/>, including a Works Cited page. The deadline for submissions is *Monday, April 25, 2022*. All entries must be submitted via email to MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu. Before submitting your entry, please take careful note of the following instructions: - Essays must be submitted in DOC, DOCX, or PDF formats. - The filename for your essay should read “[CUNYfirst ID number]NancyComleyPrize.” If you don’t know your 8-digit CUNYfirst ID number, please look it up before submitting your essay. - In the body of your email, make sure to include the following information: 1. Your full name 2. Your 8-digit CUNYfirst ID number 3. The title of your essay § Make sure that your name does not appear anywhere in your essay, which will be anonymously read by the prize judges, who are faculty members serving on the English Department’s MA Committee. Winners will be contacted by Monday, May 2. We will then announce the award winner and honor them at the department writing prizes ceremony (details TBA). Questions about the Nancy Comley Prize should be directed to the Directors of Graduate Studies in English at MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu.

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[EnglishMA] Preregistration for Fall 2022 next week (April 4-7)
by Caroline K. Hong 07 Apr '22

07 Apr '22

Dear Graduate Students, Preregistration for Fall 2022 English MA courses will take place via email ( MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu) next week, *Monday, April 4, through Thursday, April 7*. Please carefully read the attached (and pasted below) preregistration instructions and FAQs, which includes breakdowns of program requirements. Also attached are our Fall 2022 course offerings and descriptions. FYI, if you are planning to take ENGL 791 and/or 795 in Fall 2022, we will be sending out more info on how to sign up for those after preregistration has ended. As always, please email us both if you have any questions or need advising or support. Hope you're all taking care! Best, Caroline & Hillary, your Directors of Graduate Studies in English -- Preregistration for English MA Courses FALL 2022 Preregistration for Fall 2022 English MA courses will take place Monday, April 4, through Thursday, April 7, 2022. Matriculated MA, MAT, and MS Ed students in good academic standing (i.e., minimum average 3.0 GPA and no outstanding INCs) are eligible for and strongly encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity to sign up early for classes. Accelerated students who will still be undergraduates in Fall 2022 and are in good academic standing are also eligible to preregister for English MA courses. Please carefully read the following preregistration instructions and FAQs, including a breakdown of program requirements for MA, MAT, MS Ed, and Accelerated students. Fall 2022 course descriptions are attached separately. Note: the majority of our graduate English courses in Fall 2022 will be meeting in person, with a few fully online courses (ENGL 636, 733, and 781-01). If you have any questions or need advising, please email the current Directors of Graduate Studies in English—Dr. Caroline K. Hong ( caroline.hong(a)qc.cuny.edu) and Dr. Hillary Miller ( hillary.miller(a)qc.cuny.edu) Instructions for Preregistration via Email During the Fall 2022 preregistration period of April 4–7 only, please email MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu with the following info: 1. Your full name 2. Your program (MA, MAT, MS Ed, or Accelerated) 3. Your 8-digit CUNY ID# 4. The courses you’d like to register for, with their 4- or 5-digit class codes (e.g., ENGL 636, code 25703) Students may preregister for up to 3 fall courses. Preregistration requests will be processed within 24 hours and in the order they are received. You will receive a confirmation email once you’ve been registered, asking you to log onto CUNYfirst and double-check your schedule. Preregistration FAQs Who is eligible to preregister for English MA classes? All matriculated MA, MAT, and MS Ed students, as well as Accelerated English BA/MA students who will still be undergraduates in Fall 2022, are eligible to preregister for courses as long as they have an active CUNYfirst account and are in good academic standing. If your GPA has fallen below 3.0 or if you’re carrying incompletes on your record from a previous semester, you should seek advising with one of the Directors of Graduate Studies, Dr. Caroline K. Hong or Dr. Hillary Miller, before trying to preregister. Accelerated students who are planning to graduate with their BAs either this Spring 2022 semester or in Summer 2022 will not yet be able to register for fall graduate courses. Only once their BA graduation has been approved and their status in the English MA program has officially been activated on CUNYfirst can they then register for their Fall 2022 MA courses. Please contact the Directors of Graduate Studies with any questions or for advising. If you have any holds on your CUNYfirst account for any reason, however unwarranted, CUNYfirst will not allow you to be registered for classes. Please check your account before the start of the preregistration period and make sure that any holds have been resolved. Non-matriculated/non-degree students are not eligible to preregister and must wait to register themselves during their registration appointment period on CUNYfirst. Can I take a course with the same number twice for credit? Courses currently titled “Studies in…” may be repeated for credit as long as the specific course topics and texts are substantially different. For example, ENGL 639, 726, 727, and 742 may be repeated for credit. ENGL 781 (Special Seminars) may also be repeated for credit, as long as the specific course topics and texts are substantially different. ENGL 636, 638, 701, 702, and 703 cannot be repeated for credit. What are my English course requirements? For MA students (30 credits): - ENGL 701 - ENGL 636 - 7 open electives (any English graduate class offered at the 600 or 700 level, excluding ENGL 751–763, which are reserved for MFA students) - ENGL 791 (thesis essay) For Accelerated BA/MA students (up to 9 credits; or up to 6 credits if in the English Honors Seminar): - ENGL 701 - ENGL 636 - 1 elective (any English graduate class offered at the 600 or 700 level, excluding ENGL 751–763, which are reserved for MFA students) For MAT students (9 credits): - 1 pre-1900 elective - 1 open elective (any English graduate class offered at the 600 or 700 level, excluding the creative writing workshops and craft classes, ENGL 751–763, which are reserved for MFA students) - ENGL 781 For MS Ed students (15 credits): - ENGL 702 (currently only offered in spring semesters) or ENGL 703 - 2 pre-1900 electives - 1 open elective (any English graduate class offered at the 600 or 700 level, excluding the creative writing workshops and craft classes, ENGL 751–763, which are reserved for MFA students) - ENGL 781 For MAT and MS Ed students, what courses fulfill the pre-1900 requirement? To fulfill the pre-1900 requirement, MAT and MS Ed students can take ENGL 726, 727, or 742 in Fall 2022. Can I preregister for ENGL 791, the thesis course, or ENGL 795, the independent study course? English 791 and English 795 require additional advising and paperwork, so these are not courses for which you can preregister. The Directors of Graduate Studies will announce more information about how to sign up for these courses after the preregistration period has ended. -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days.

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[EnglishMA] Reminder: MON 3/28 deadline for 2022 Grad Conference submissions
by Caroline K. Hong 25 Mar '22

25 Mar '22

Dear Graduate Students, A reminder that the submission deadline for our 8th annual QC English Graduate Conference, on the theme of "Catastrophe and Community," is this coming *Monday, March 28*. Please see the attached PDF or this Google Doc <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gxzuBEBGaAa_FnUR0Up6ZOnWCmHVj7xzRhvoqUY…> for the CFP and then submit your proposals via this Google Form <https://forms.gle/56kLLbL8DYUeFuft6>. And encourage your classmates and colleagues to submit too! We want to emphasize that we're really open to a wide range of ideas and formats, not just traditional academic papers/presentations. You'll have until early May to figure out the details, so feel free to dream up and propose something creative or experimental! Or revisit work from a previous semester that you're really proud of! Or give us a preview of a work-in-progress! Use this as an opportunity to share and nerd out about your interests and investments with our community. And of course please do let us know if you have any questions. Best, Caroline and Hillary (on behalf of the 2022 Graduate Conference Committee) -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days. ---------- Forwarded message --------- Dear Graduate Students, We are thrilled to share the Call for Papers (CFP) for our 8th annual QC English Graduate Conference, on the theme of "Catastrophe and Community" (please see the attached PDF or this Google Doc <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gxzuBEBGaAa_FnUR0Up6ZOnWCmHVj7xzRhvoqUY…>). Many thanks to the 2022 Grad Conference Committee for pulling it together so quickly and beautifully! Please consider submitting a proposal by the *March 28* deadline via Google Form <https://forms.gle/56kLLbL8DYUeFuft6>! Building off the success of last year's virtual conference, the CFP invites a wide range of presentations related to this year's theme, in a variety of formats, both in-person and virtual. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to share your work, get support and feedback from our collegial departmental community, and participate in a vital aspect of academic life. Our hope is for a hybrid conference the first week of May, and we plan to announce details in early April, so please stay tuned! And in the meantime, please don't hesitate to email us if you have any questions. Best, Caroline & Hillary, your Directors of Graduate Studies in English (on behalf of the 2022 Grad Conference Committee) -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days.

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[EnglishMA] Faculty candidate talks + other updates/reminders
by Caroline K. Hong 16 Mar '22

16 Mar '22

Dear Graduate Students, As mentioned in our previous email, we have three fantastic candidates for a new faculty hire in African American and African diasporic literature—Dr. Chamara Moore <https://nd.academia.edu/ChamaraMoore>, Dr. Maya Hislop <https://www.clemson.edu/caah/academics/english/faculty-and-staff/facultybio…>, and Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe <https://africana.cornell.edu/tao-leigh-goffe>. As part of their virtual campus visits this week and next week, they will each be giving a talk. Please see below for more info and the Zoom links. If you attend any of the talks, you're welcome to email me (as a member of the search committee) to share any feedback. *Wednesday, March 16, 12:15–1:30pm**Dr. Chamara Moore, "Electric Black: Race, Phenomenology, and Black Superheroes"* How can Black Speculation be used as a form of healing not only in speculative texts like Octavia Butler's *Fledgling*, but also with particularly harmful tropes like the Electric Black Superhero? This talk will explain how these tropes make light of the suffering Black people have experienced historically from harmful electrified tools of the state ranging from the tazer to the electric chair. The talk will conclude with a brief overview of how Speculative fiction creators have reinvented the phenomenology of the Black body through the speculative elements of their work in visual texts like *Black Mirror* and HBO's *Watchmen*. Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81813320597?pwd=blBwRWhxNnM5Q05pOHE5M1duRnc3dz09 *Thursday, March 17, 12:15–1:30pm**Dr. Maya Hislop, “Black Women Imagine Violence as Healing: Systems of Destructive Justice in Gayl Jones’s Corregidora and State of North Carolina v. Joan Little, 1974-75”* In this talk I’ll be taking an in-depth examination of the landmark case, *State of North Carolina v. Joan Little, 1974-1975* in order to uncover a crucial reading of the criminal justice systems at work in the contemporaneous Black feminist novel, *Corregidora*. Adding to previous scholarship which often considers *Corregidora* to be a novel about trauma, I read it as a novel about transformative justice. I argue that Jones uses literature to do what the law cannot: assert a complex relationship between black women, the law, and sexual violence that dismantles binaries around agency and healing. In the remains of these dismantled binaries, the main characters of *Corregidora* showcase what I call an Afropessimistic or millenialist justice system built around failure, self-destruction, and the destruction of others. Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85070031656?pwd=aVFmOUFPMnhOM05pQ2p1QnRGaXdrUT09 *Monday, March 21, 12:15–1:30pm**Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe, “Molten Black: Reading Climate, Racial Formations, and Geological Metaphors”* Environmental thought has been foundational and formative to American literature and rhetoric. Reckoning with the climate crisis, in this talk, Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe will examine the uneven formations of race and racial meaning in metaphors of geology. Exploring the reading practices and literacies embedded in the rhetoric of natural history that have led to how we read race, how might we rethink Suzan-Lori Parks and George Jackson in conversation with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Darwin? From the 19th century Guano Age to dormant volcanoes to the very bedrock of island formations the matter of blackness erupts to the surface revealing tensions and the fault lines of racial division and hierarchy. Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87008612405?pwd=RDF4Z296OXVTb3A3eDUvc21qb0xnQT09 We are also currently doing a search for a new faculty hire in early modern studies and have three amazing finalists—Anita Raychawdhur, Dr. Hanh Bui, and Dr. Sawyer Kemp. Again, you're very welcome to join their virtual talks and send me any feedback after (see info below). *Friday, Mar 18, 11:00am–12:30pm* *Anita Raychawdhur, "Queer Witchcraft: Macbeth, King James I/VI’s Patriarchal Anxieties, and Desiring White Identity"* This talk considers the staging of queer women's kinship in William Shakespeare's *Macbeth* in relation to early modern nation and racial formation. In particular, *Macbeth* participates in the creation of a white English identity that casts out and racializes "unruly" Scots of the past through the Weird Sisters and the Macbeths, who are associated with marginal locales such as heaths and highlands. The Weird Sisters further reject normative womanhood, thus presenting an alternative to the fantasy and futurity of an English identity predicated upon legible whiteness. From the prophesying of the gender-bending witches to the moment of Macbeth’s destruction, aided by English forces, *Macbeth* allows for consideration of how Jacobean England positioned Scotland’s past as non-white and queer. Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82680897015?pwd=WkhZelZraWhhWFZua3ZwSFlNMW1EUT09 *Wednesday, March 23, 12:15–1:30pm**Dr. Hanh Bui, "Call the Midwife: Birthing Blackness in Titus Andronicus"* This paper examines a neglected context for understanding epistemologies of race in Shakespeare’s drama: the role of the midwife. In sixteenth and seventeenth-century England, midwives performed an important cultural function by not only assisting women in labor, but also by pronouncing the health, sex, and—most critically—paternity of an infant. As Caroline Bicks has noted, this was a time when a midwife had considerable influence over how a body was interpreted at the moment of its birth, thereby determining its reception in the community. Nowhere in Shakespeare’s canon is the midwife’s privileged authority more manifest—and threatening—than in *Titus Andronicus*, where the midwife’s role includes bearing witness to an infant’s race. After Tamora, Empress of Rome, delivers a baby fathered by her lover, Aaron the Moor, he asks the question: “how many saw the child?” By subsequently killing the birth attendants, Aaron calls attention to how controlling the destiny of his black-hued baby depends upon silencing the midwife’s knowledge. The paper further explores how narratives of foreign midwives and birthing practices in the period’s writings helped to construct the non-English as racialized “other.” Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86779729052?pwd=R09jNktpVGFtbGdVOHRTZCtpSkVMUT09 *Thursday, March 24, 12:15–1:30pm* *Dr. Sawyer Kemp, title and abstract TBA* Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87118934820?pwd=aFVXVWROci9iQUlybzk0Sm9UM3Y1Zz09 We would also like to request your help in spreading the word to your networks about our wonderful English MA program! If you know folks who may be interested in pursuing an English MA, please encourage them to apply! They can learn more about our admissions requirements here <https://qcenglish.commons.gc.cuny.edu/graduate/ma-in-english/admissions/> or email us at MAEnglish(a)qc.cuny.edu. We will be extending our Fall 2022 admissions deadline till July 1, BUT we were given a couple scholarships to award incoming fall students, and the priority deadline to be considered for those is April 1. Finally, a reminder to submit a proposal for our 2022 Grad Conference <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gxzuBEBGaAa_FnUR0Up6ZOnWCmHVj7xzRhvoqUY…>! The deadline is coming up in a week and a half, *March 28*. We'll be in touch again soon with the call for the Nancy Comley Prize and with more info about Fall 2022 course offerings and preregistration (which will be happening in early April). Till then, hope you're continuing to take care! Best, Caroline & Hillary, your Directors of Graduate Studies in English -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days.

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[EnglishMA] Meet & Greets for African American lit job candidates
by Caroline K. Hong 09 Mar '22

09 Mar '22

Dear Graduate Students, As you may have already seen in an email from Prof. Karen Weingarten, we have three amazing candidates for a new faculty hire in African American and African diasporic literature, and they will be joining us for virtual campus visits and interviews over the next couple weeks. The candidates are Dr. Chamara Moore <https://nd.academia.edu/ChamaraMoore>, currently a visiting assistant professor at Dominican University; Dr. Maya Hislop <https://www.clemson.edu/caah/academics/english/faculty-and-staff/facultybio…>, currently an assistant professor at Clemson University; and Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe <https://africana.cornell.edu/tao-leigh-goffe>, currently an assistant professor at Cornell University. I've attached their writing samples here too, in case you want to get a sense of their work. We'd love for our English students (especially those working in these fields) to have a chance to meet with the candidates and give us your feedback! These meet & greets will take place via Zoom on *March 16, 17, and 21, from 1:45–2:30pm*. If you're interested and available at any (or all) of these times, please RSVP via this Google Form: https://forms.gle/EVGeqzepyUSwnqj4A. Prof. Weingarten will follow up with more info and the Zoom links. Thank you, and hope you're all taking care! Best, Caroline (and Hillary) -- Dr. Caroline Kyungah Hong Associate Professor of English Director of Graduate Studies (English MA) Queens College, CUNY *she/her/hers* * Please note that I am off email on weekends and will respond to your email during business hours, Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, generally within 1–2 business days.

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